About

Matt Mooney slams on Wall St. Photo by Eby Ghafarian.

Mission:

Stoops Magazine will document and inspire the current generation of skateboarding in New York City. It will showcase the best, most creative, and rawest skateboarding happening in the five boroughs by locals, natives, and visitors. Stoops will give you a look into the diversity of spots and the potential that the city offers.

Why:

New York is one of most photogenic cities in the world. Couple that with amazing and creative skateboarding and you will find it hard to beat the photos it will (and does!) produce. The problem is that there is no solid outlet for displaying these photos. You may get lucky to see a low-resolution version of one or two of them floating around some blogs, but is that sufficient? A lot of major European cities have their own mags to help represent their cities (Grey Magazine out of London, for example), so it's time that the world's city had its own. This would benefit many. For one, it would let outsiders into our world of skateboarding through one of the most chaotic cities. It would also help shine light on the local companies, filmmakers, photographers, and skaters that are pushing the boundaries with no mainstream support.

$20k?

The reason we are asking for $20k to start this project is that we want to have the capacity to print and ship enough magazines to our list of over 500 shops around the world. There is interest not only in the U.S., but in Canada, France, the U.k., Germany, Japan, etc. Once we account for the costs of fulfilling the incentives and paying the Kickstarter/Amazon fees, most of what is left will go straight to printing, distribution, and paying contributors.

Rob Gonyon - FS Nosegrind. Bronx. Photo by Allen Ying.

Who We Are:

Eby Ghafarian – Editor In Chief

Marketing-Major (NYU-Stern), 8 years of integrated marketing experience, mostly on the advertising side.

Co-editor of 43 Magazine.

Founder/Creative Director of Naysayer Skateboards.

Skates pretty much every day.

Allen Ying - Photo Editor

Shooting skateboarding for over 14 years with photos published in all the major magazines (including foreign and regional mags), ie Thrasher, Transworld, SLAP, Skateboarder, TSM, Kingpin, Color, Focus, Monster etc.

Staff – We have a small group of people that work together with us on 43 and are down to help out as needed on Stoops.

Ryan Lay - FS Wallride. Manhattan. Photo by Allen Ying.

Distribution

While the magazine content is 100% NYC, we will be distributing the magazine internationally. So while you will be able to find it locally and on the East Coast, it will also be available in skate shops around the country and in many other countries (such as Japan, France, the U.K., Canada, Germany, etc.).

Specs

6”x9”

Color

80 pages

Requirements

Only photos shot in the 5 boroughs, not Long Island, upstate, or Jersey.

43 Magazine is Allen Ying's primary project and is in full swing. In fact, issue 004 is on its way! While 43 is also based out of NYC, it is a very different magazine entirely. It is about the beauty and independence of skateboarding, non-exclusive to New York. While we do intend to have a high standard set for the photography in Stoops (hence Allen coming on board as the photo editor), our focus is specifically on NYC. As a precursor to launching Stoops, the last issue of 43 was actually an NYC issue, which was the best issue thus far! If you can still find a copy, I suggest you do so.

Incentives:

These are not finalized, they are simply mock-ups to give you an idea of what you will get. If you have questions about something specific, feel free to message us and we'll respond as quickly as possible.

T-shirts will most likely look very similar to this. They will be available in s/m/l/xl/xxl. If you need a special sizes, feel free to let us know and we will work something out.

These snap-back hats come standard. The design is not 100% yet.

The design is not final. We are going back and fourth with a couple designs, including the script logo. The hoodies will come in s/m/l/xl/xxl. If you need a special size, please send us a message.

Risks and challenges

There are many potential risks and challenges with launching a magazine but few that haven't already been dealt with and while working on 43. There are chances of delays at the printer, of which we will work ahead of our timelines to anticipate. There are always increasing costs that would effect units, but we wouldn't sacrifice the product quality as a result. The biggest issue however is ensuring enough quality photos per issue. Being that this is a quarterly magazine, we have build in a good buffer time to ensure sufficient time submissions. We also plan to keep a healthy cache of photos on ice, in case there are slow times where we need them.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $3,000 or more
About $3,000

$500 package + photo run in magazine. Must be shot by one of our photographers and up to our discretion as to what runs. If you are not that great, you can sub someone else in or we can shoot something more on the artistic/scenic side. (US only)